We have three critical seats on our Accountability Chart that have remained empty for six months because we cannot find candidates who match both our core values and our high-performance requirements. How do we use Thinking Time to diagnose if our hiring criteria are unrealistic?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When critical seats remain empty for six months, you are paying a high operational tax. This is rarely a market problem; it is almost always a structural or criteria problem.

To diagnose this issue, schedule a thirty-minute Thinking Time session. Start with a high-value question framed to find solutions: How might we adjust our seat definitions and hiring criteria so that we can fill these roles without compromising our culture?

During your Thinking Time, analyze your current job profiles. Are you looking for a purple unicorn? For example, are you demanding that a single candidate possess both the high Fact Finder capability needed for deep database administration and the high Quick Start capability required for rapid business development?

These conative traits are often mutually exclusive. If you pack too many conflicting responsibilities into a single seat, you will never find a qualified candidate.

Use your session to evaluate if these seats need to be split. You might find that you can break one unrealistic seat into two smaller, highly focused seats. One could be a fractional specialist role, and the other could be an internal coordinator role.

Additionally, review your compensation and sourcing strategies. If your performance requirements are world-class, but your salary is market-average, you have a structural mismatch. Use your Thinking Time to get honest about these realities, adjust your Accountability Chart, and reopen the search with realistic, balanced criteria.